Proof in the polls — backing immigration reform would help GOP: Opinion

Rev. Miguel Ceja, of Our Lady of Hope in San Bernardino, leads a prayer during an immigration reform rally at San Bernardino City Hall on Oct. 5. It's not only immigrants who support a national immigration overhaul. Polls show Southern California Republican congressmen would gain popularity by backing it. (Photo by Micah Escamilla for the San Bernardino Sun)

Common sense says it would be good politics for California congressmen to support immigration reform, since the proposed changes generally would help the state and its economy.

But in case common sense doesn’t convince Republican representatives, here’s poll data to back it up.

The pro-immigration-reform group America’s Voice reports the Republican-affiliated firm Magellan Strategies polled residents of the districts represented by Buck McKeon, R-Santa Clarita, Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, and Darrell Issa, R-Vista, and found each would gain popularity by backing a bill like HR 15, which calls for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

For McKeon — whose 25th District stretches north and east from the north edge of the San Fernando Valley — 41 percent said they’d have a “more favorable” opinion of the congressman and 23 percent “less favorable” if he worked “to pass an immigration reform plan that ensured undocumented immigrants currently living in the U.S. pay a penalty, learn English, pass a criminal background check, pay taxes and wait a minimum of 13 years before becoming eligible for citizenship.”

For McCarthy, the numbers were 45 percent more favorable, 24 less favorable if he backed such a bill, and for Issa, it was 43 percent more, 22 percent less.

The pollsters asked residents if they support an immigration bill like the one described above. In the three districts, 73 percent to 76 percent indicated support, including 65 percent to 74 percent of Republicans.

Separately, a survey conducted by the Democratic-leaning firm Public Policy Polling shows 66 percent of residents of the district of Rep. Gary Miller, R-Rancho Cucamonga, support immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship.

This is significant.

If California Republicans are listening to state business leaders, they already know that conservative principles abound in the immigration overhaul proposals most talked about in Washington, D.C. Two of the 15 GOP members from California, Reps. Jeff Denham of Turlock and David Valadao of Hanford, are supportive.

If the rest need to check the direction of the political winds before taking a stand, they should read these new reports on what their constituents say, and should find them persuasive.